Sustaining the city
by Rebecca Gill
High-rise
gleaming glass towers scrape the hot sky, and racetracks, malls and
theme parks burst out from the ports, sprawling into a barren desert.
This is Dubai.
Thirty years ago it was home to a few thousand people – today it has a population of over a million.
It may be one of the most rapidly developing cities in the world but much of Dubai City’s construction is poorly planned and hastily executed. And while the emirate’s rulers talk about the importance of sustainable urban planning, development continues to explode.
Enter a group of UniSA students who flew to Dubai in March to take part in The Dubai International Forum for Sustainable Urban Development. Sean Humphries and Alex Hall (architecture) together with Victoria Long and Anna Pullen (planning) put forward a plan to regenerate Dubai’s old port area, and won third place for their efforts.
"We felt the ‘develop and re-develop’ approach would only result in what already exists all over the world where mega-development has occurred. It becomes sterile and banal, and wipes out the existing culture," Humphries said.
"We wanted to stabilise Dubai’s unique nature, by protecting the existing urban fabric and sustaining it."
Victoria Long said acknowledging the complex cultural and environmental context of both the study area, and Dubai as a whole, was at the core of the group’s proposal.
"There were so many factors to be sensitive to. It was a challenging project, but presenting our ideas in front of international judges and local municipality was so rewarding," she said.
Although they didn’t take out the major prize, Humphries said competing on a global scale was an invaluable opportunity.
"Travelling is so important. If you just stay in Adelaide, you don’t see things from a global perspective."
The Masters of Urban and Regional Planning offers students the opportunity to take part in an international urban design studio every year. In 2006 students will be visiting Penang in Malaysia as part of their studies. For enquiries about the program call Professor Steve Hamnett on +61 8 8302 2297